Space Shuttle Gains Remote-Control Landing Capability 248
rufey writes "An article over at Space.com mentions two new tools that Space Shuttle Discovery will have aboard during its upcoming flight, designated STS-121, scheduled to lift off on July 1, 2006. One tool is for tile repair. The other tool is a 28-foot-long cable that would be used to connect an avionics bay located on the mid-deck with the flight-deck controls. The cable enables flight controllers on the ground to land the Shuttle completely by remote control, including the ability to lower the landing gear. The remote control landing would be used in the case where the Shuttle was damaged to the point that it would be too risky to land it with humans aboard, but could be landed without humans aboard in an attempt to save the vehicle. The astronauts would take refuge on the ISS while mission control in Houston attempt to land a damaged Shuttle."
Buran (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Buran (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Buran (Score:4, Insightful)
The Russians did their Buran thing with no fan fare yet and it was more modern and stayed technologically superior to anything we Americans produced for 17 years. Heck we even do not know what they have in store for us.
For sure...if they can control their spaceships from earth, I do not see why landing a shuttle remotely is that tough. Please do not diminish the Russian achievements.
Re:Buran (Score:5, Insightful)
In Soviet Russia.... they certainly did brag about their achievements. For instance, Sputnik and Gagarin got huge exposure. But until they had achieved their aim, they preferred to keep quiet, so if it did go pear shaped they could just pretend they weren't even trying.
Re:Buran (Score:3, Informative)
BTW the reason that the Braun wasn't manned we because they didn't have a working life support system installed yet.
Re:Buran (Score:4, Insightful)
More like: the astronauts refused to allow it until now. The Shuttle program, along with the Apollo and Gemini programs before it (and to a lesser extent, Mercury), is pretty much controlled (politically and administratively) from Houston, by astronauts and former astronauts in management positions. Dating back to the original Mercury astronauts, they have insisted on an element of manual control with no computer in the loop. This is partially a control issues (recall the original astronauts were almost all test pilots), and partially job security and ego. The use of chimpanzees on the first couple of Mercury flights led to some embarrassing comparisons.
While few of today's astronaut corps come out of the test pilot tradition, the "mandatory man in the loop" is ingrained into NASA culture, and defended fiercely by JSC (if you don't need men (or women) aboard, do you need a Manned Spaceflight Center?).
Mind, I'm all for putting people in space -- the more the merrier, and what's a little risk if the people are willing to take it? But refusing to install a capability they could have had 20 years ago (and autoland for aircraft goes back way further than that) for ego reasons is stupid.
Re:Buran [Cue new Slogon] (Score:3, Funny)
And this time they could mean it!
Re:Buran (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to say the russians didn't make some good stuff, but this isn't the best choice to discuss it on.
Re:Buran (Score:5, Insightful)
One could say that Airbus copied Boeing because airliners all look pretty similar. One would be an idiot to make that comment though, the reality is that they are vastly different beasts.
Re:Buran (Score:2, Insightful)
One could say that Airbus copied Boeing because airliners all look pretty similar. One would be an idiot to make that comment though,
Re:Buran (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure we managed to build a fleet a and fly it, but the program is a dismal failure as is the ISS.
The shuttle fleet were designed for 100 flights each and a service life span or 10 years. The program was intended to be a routine "bus" service to orbit. Of the five flyable units built, two have self-destructed due to design and maintenance failures. On every criteria the program was founded for they have not even remotely lived up to the intentions. I call that a failure.
The equivalent would be purchasing a car that you intend to drive to work every day, but instead it only works once every six months. Oh... and almost half of the cars sold will spontaneously explode killing everyone on board. The repair costs will skyrocket every year since the continual failures will cause a feedback loop to where every major component has to be completely inspected and/or re-built after every use.
Who's to blame? The political process in the U.S Government that continually starves NASA's budget is part of it. NASA's own administration is also a large part of it; they have become so wound up in the minutia, they forget to look up and see the stupidity of the questions they are trying to answer.
Re:Buran (Score:2)
When the Soviet Union decided to build a shuttle they didn't immediately just copy the US version. They tested a number of different aircraft designs. In the initial stages of development they wanted to build a craft that could t
You never see pictures inside the Soyuz... (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting in a Soyuz simulator un-suited is an unpleasant experience. Doing it for real is only for very dedicated people.
This is not something that people are going to want to get into space with big-time.
We've moved from something pointing to routine space travel (shuttle class vehicles) to glorified escape pods.
Yes, their stuff is reliable - so is a 1955 GMC stepside pickup. You want to use one to get a current big budget construction job done?
If we were still flying Gemini-era equipment, there'd be a crowd here yelling about how backwards we are.
They have not distinguished themselves in expanding horizons, pushing the envelope, whatever you want to call it.
Yes, they have far less resources, but that's like saying a kart racer is the real winner at LeMans, just cause he got out there.
As for "stayed technologically superior" - if by that you mean it auto-landed, then remember the only two-orbit flight was done with no environmentals or on-board software other than what was needed to complete a pre-programmed flight. And that was it. The rest are incomplete and never flew. You may want to factor in the fact that one of the vehicles and its launch equipment sat in an old hangar so long that they and the building they sat it rotted and collapsed, killing 8 people.
I'll take existing STS over Buran any day, I'll take a 99% STS over Soyuz or CEV.
Before you bring up the safety issue - what do we find acceptable? NASCAR has had 32 drivers killed, and we still hand them $1.3B every year. NASA's FY 2007 request is $1.7B.
Re:You never see pictures inside the Soyuz... (Score:3, Informative)
No. $16.3 Billion. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/nasa.
Nobody in the space programme puts down Russia (Score:3, Interesting)
In soviet russia (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In soviet russia (Score:3, Funny)
No, I'm New Here (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No, I'm New Here (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buran (Score:3, Funny)
Anoraks and hilltops... (Score:2)
Re:Buran (Score:2, Interesting)
In Serbian, which is very similar to Russian in may aspects, "Buran" means "something that is like 'bura'" and "bura" is a type of wind that makes the see go mad, makes big waves,
Re:Buran (Score:2, Insightful)
It does. The Russian word for "bura" is "burya".
Re:Buran (Score:2)
Re:Buran (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the gear is manually extended (Score:4, Informative)
You heard wrong. The shuttle gear is deployed manually to ensure that a short circuit doesn't inadvertently extend the gear while the shuttle is still in orbit, thus causing the tires and hydraulics to explode in the vacuum of space, rendering the shuttle unable to land.
Re:Why the gear is manually extended (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why the gear is manually extended (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Landing the shuttle (Score:3, Insightful)
Especially a glider with the aerodynamic profile of a bottle of spring water with the label half torn off.
Wrong! They will not explode in space (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA Finally caught up with the ruskies (Score:2)
I'm sure next they'll announce a new re-useable capsule ala soyuz, going back to the cheap&reliable method.
Automated docking too (Score:2, Interesting)
Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, I think the Space Shuttle needs to load a connector to dock to the ISS - will this now be always loaded into the cargo bay or what?
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Humans were safer flying apollo. The full apollo stack had three totally independent pressurised environments (CM, LM and pressure suits). Even the pressure suits had two independent air and cooling systems. The heat shield was only exposed immediately before use and by design it was a lot stronger than the shuttle TPS.
It was a bloody good system. Comparable in reliability to the life support systems used in scuba diving. And it had heaps of redundancy. Even in the near disaster of apollo 13 I can think of half a dozen things which the crew might have tried if their work arounds failed.
The shuttle has a bad architecture, and current efforts at fixing it are working against the original design.
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:4, Interesting)
Like what, the fact it has enough cargo space to bring a school bus to orbit? I agree, it's time to move to the next-gen space vehicle, but the shuttle has done a terrific service to manned space flight. Guess I'm just tired of the bandwagon effect - everyone, let's pile on to the shuttle-hating team!!
Apollo was safer, and Soyuz is safer than Apollo. But you're flying in a cramped closet. The shuttle is still THE best space vehicle in the world.
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:2)
Sometimes you need a car, not a truck (Score:5, Interesting)
The best by what criterion? By costing a helluva lot more to do the same job, just to resemble travelling in a mac truck instead of a car? Just as a national penis size symbol along the lines of "we can afford to haul a giant truck into orbit, even at the expense of blowing up a few astronauts now and then"? Or maybe as a way to waste whatever space budget is left on a couple of uber-expensive flights per year instead of several flights with a smaller vehicle?
Yes, in an ideal world, where money and resources are unlimited, flying in style in a giant airplane would be cool. In the real world, you have a finite space budget. Wasting it on lifting something that size _and_ on trying to patch an unsafe design is actually detrimental. The same budget would allow a helluva lot more if it wasn't wasted on the shuttle.
Even the original shuttle design would disaggree with your assessment that the current shuttle is good. Just as a quick reminder:
The original shuttle design was, basically, the equivalent of a car. It was little more than a reusable capsule with wings. It was supposed to be reusable, cheap, safe, and pay for itself by doing lots of trips up and down. It also had buggerall cargo space and was only supposed to go into sane orbits.
Except NASA didn't have the budget for it. So they look at who else has a budget to put stuff in orbit: the Airforce. They're shooting these huge spy satellites into space. So NASA goes to the Airforce and says basically "you know, if you gave us your l(a)unch money, we could put those satellites in orbit for you safer and cheaper. And even bring them back down if needed! You won't have to launch another Titan rocket ever again. Won't that be nice?"
The Airforce payloads were, however, (A) bloody huge, and (B) went in a polar orbit, so they'd sweep over the soviet union. That's what the Airforce needed done. So if they're to give their space budget to NASA, then NASA had to guarantee they could do that. Enter the new shuttle concept: a freaking huge truck that can load one of those in its cargo bay.
Look at that huge cargo bay, and that's what it's for. It's not to give the astronauts leg room or anything, it's just big enough to pack one of those huge spy satellites.
The aftermath:
1. Even for those satellites, using a manned shuttle is fucking stupid. You don't need humans onboard to put a satellite into orbit, when a computer can do the same thing. And you don't need to deal with the media fallout when you blow up some humans. (Not to mention the irresponsibility of risking some human lives when you can do the exact same without them.) And you don't need to lift a huge ultra-expensive shuttle either, when you can just lift the satellite itself instead.
So do you want to know how those satellites are launched nowadays? By the Airforce, with a big rocket.
2. For smaller satellites, which was the original shuttle's idea, now the thing is too big and expensive. It's like using an 18 wheeler truck to haul your computer. It's just not worth it.
So how are all those satellites launched nowadays? With a smaller rocket.
3. For hauling humans into orbit, it's too big, too expensive, and too unsafe. And it becomes even more expensive by trying to patch that unsafe design.
4. But wait, isn't it used to haul materials up to the ISS? Isn't that worth having a huge flying truck? Well, guess what? The same applies as for the Airforce's satellites: the cargo can go up with a cheap rocket just as well. A computer can put it into any kind of orbit you want it in. And the Russians have been doing just that, for a fraction of the cost, _and_ more reliably. Who do you think supplies the ISS when the shuttle is grounded for months trying to figure out what foam to use and where? Right. Traditional Russian rockets do.
Even if you needed something assembled into space, there's no reason whatsoever to carry the humans and the cargo together. You can put the humans up with a small shuttle and whatever cargo they need up with a rocket.
Re:Sometimes you need a car, not a truck (Score:2)
Re:Sometimes you need a car, not a truck (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cargo? Please. (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that what the ISS and the other space stations were for?
The shuttle isn't just a flying semi, it's a flying semi with a extended cab that includes a lab. Why don't we just leave it up there and convert it into a space station?
The idea is simple: You launch cargo on the cheap dumb booster of the appropriate size. You launch people using a high reliability rocket, with a high reliabil
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:2)
The space suits were only designed for operation on the moon, and could never be use while operatin
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and then suppose... (Score:2)
Seriously, it's easy to postulate any number of disasters happening at the same time, but what are the odds?
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:2)
What if a tile falls off the shuttle and hits the ISS?
Provided the original inhabitants of the ISS were given priority to the escape pod in the event of an emergency, it shouldn't be a big deal.
But worryingly, the summary says:
The astronauts would take refuge on the ISS while mission control in Houston attempt to land a damaged Shuttle.
If I was an astronaut I'd prefer that the damaged Shuttle was lan
Re:Filling the ISS over capacity a good idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
No big deal, the closing speed between the shuttle and the ISS is only a few feet per second, so it would just bounce off, if that tile has enough speed to damage anything then there are bigger problems to worry about...like what happens when the shuttle slams into the ISS.
You're worried about nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
It would bounce gently and harmlessly off the ISS and float away, probably to fall back to earth within a year. The Shuttle and ISS in this scenario are in the same orbit, so the relative speed between the two is small.
I don't think you have any concept of how big space is. The shuttle would be literally dozens (perhaps hun
Re:You're worried about nothing (Score:2)
You have a good point.
28 ft ? (Score:4, Funny)
-S
Re:28 ft ? (Score:3, Funny)
They will be able to go far enough to take a pee break, grab a beer (read: a Space Brewski, or Tang), and make a decent sandwich. In ideal conditions, they won't even miss the big game.
Including the ability to lower the landing gear (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, I suppose that's sort of a "must have" feature when landing a big glider-like object.
A better picture of the interface (Score:5, Funny)
Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:3, Insightful)
T.
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, this is 70's technology. At the time, they were more afraid of computer glitches than they were of pilot error. The systems in the shuttle can open the doors for the landing gear, but they can only be closed with ground equipment. (saves weight) Any sort of computer glitch affecting the landing gear doors, and they're stuck on-orbit with 3 big holes in the bottom of the craft and no way to close them. FWIU, the landing gear doors have been the only completely manually-operated part of the shuttle.
Decent reasoning, for the time. I suspect we're a little more comfortable with computer control, now.
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:3, Insightful)
Spaceshuttle is able to land fully automatically too, however it is said that the pilots usually prefer
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:2)
Airline autoland systems (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. This is an example of a little information being a dangerous thing.
First of all, it's called a "Category III ILS Precision Approach", not a "Kat C procedure. It requires 3 criteria to all be in place in order to be attempted. The landing facility must be equipped, certified, and current. The airplane must be equipped, certified, and current. And the pilot-in-command attempting the approach must be certified and current for Cat III approaches.
Secondly, it is not a routine landing. Not all runways at all airports are equipped with Cat III ILS. Airlines make a lot of flights to smaller airports that just have the basic Cat I or II ILS systems, or even localizer-only, ADF, or VOR non-precision approach guidance systems. Pilots land "by hand" almost all the time. The "auto-lands" are the rare occurences, and they are required to do them every so often to keep current.
Landing the space shuttle is very, very different from landing an airliner. The glideslope is ridiculously steep. There is no second chance. The shuttle is practically plummetting at between 6000 - 8000 feet per minute (normal aircraft descent at around 500 feet per minute when on approach for landing). The shuttle enters the approach pattern at over 35,000 feet. If it needs to do a 360 degree turn, it will lose over 30,000 in altitude. It has an absolutely horrible glide ratio. Its glideslope angle is 20 degrees (normal glideslope angle is 3 - 5 degrees). It comes in at almost 300 mph (waaaay too fast for any other normal aircraft). It truly is a very special aircraft.
All correct....and I'll also add that (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shuttle Orbiter Automatic Landing (Score:4, Informative)
While the final approach is typically flown by hand, the Shuttle has only been flown in from orbit to landing completely manually once. This was done on STS-2 in 1981 by Joe Engle [af.mil], who started out as an X-15 pilot. Pretty amazing.
Landing gear (Score:5, Informative)
The last I heard the landing gear release was a simple manual switch with no connection to the flight control system. TFA describes the new cable as a "Data Cable" so there must also be a new connection between a computer system and the landing gear switch.
Its strange that this was not mentioned in the article. Perhaps this change was made earlier?
Oh and BTW I am still reading the apollo 17 ALSJ [nasa.gov] and much is made of the exploding foam incidents on apollo 16 and 17. The stuff was literally rocketing up into the sky around the LM during both missions. You would think that somebody would think (foam == bad) as a part of the lessons learnt from apollo. Drilling holes in the stuff is clearly not enough.
Obligatory joke ... (Score:5, Funny)
You know you're landing gear up when it takes full throttle to taxi.
Old news indeed... (Score:4, Funny)
R/C Shuttle (Score:5, Funny)
Everything Old (Score:2)
Ah, everything old is new again
Preposterous klooodge ! (Score:2)
But the astronauts hated the idea of just being useless cargo, so they *demanded* some human input be required. Flying the landing just right by hand was not feasible, so they settled on flipping the landing gear switch as a paltry validation of the need of humans on the shuttle.
They also asked to control the brakes, and this was tried a few times, bu
Re:Preposterous klooodge ! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's more down to the fact that they hated the idea of dying because the computer lowered the landing gear in orbit. There's no way to raise the landing gear on the shuttle from inside: the hydraulic systems to do so don't exist and the landing gear doors have some heat-protection added after they're closed on the ground.
And the lack of trust of the autopilot was somewhat well founded: John Young had to fly part of Columbia's first re-entry manually because the real aerodynamics at hypersonic speed turned out to differ enough from the models that the shuttle would probably have been destroyed if there were no people on board.
Now, of course, they've done more than enough re-entries to trust the computer to fly most of the way, but you're still dead if the computer has a brain-fart and lowers the gear in space. Similarly, the Apollo command module had a switch to completely disable the system that opened the parachutes until just before landing.
Re:Preposterous klooodge ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, now you've skewed to the oposite end of the spectrum -- sure, you don't have to worry about the landing gear accidentally deploying, but now you have to worry that some tiny malfunction is going to cause it not to deploy at all!
The manual system has one really good thing going for it: Simplicity.
Reference (Score:3, Informative)
http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/shuttle_control. html [yarchive.net]
According to Mary Shafer herself:
"After the first S-turn on STS-1, the entire re-entry was hand-flown through STS-4, at which point the FCS was rewritten (and the e-seats removed). John Young took over the flying when the sideslip meter pegged and stayed pegged for several seconds, meaning that the limit had been exceeded. This happened because L_YJ was about half the size predicted and the wrong sign and not even
Re:Reference (Score:3, Informative)
Astronauts designed the shuttle? (Score:2)
In what alternate universe do the astronauts have any authority at all over the design engineers at NASA?
Re:Preposterous klooodge ! (Score:2)
As for astronauts as "useless cargo", nope. The only way to fully automate a spacecraft is to know exactly how everything is going to work, what can go wrong, and how to fix it during a mission. There is no way that kind of knowledge can be built into something as complex as a spacecraft with untried technologies befo
Re:Preposterous klooodge ! (Score:2)
It does come down fast, but the landing speed and approach is not much higher than a commercial passenger jet.
The whole trick to it is using up excess energy. Since
New Shuttle Astronaut standard issue kit (Score:2)
(2) 100 kg (lb?), Bondo
(3) 100 gallons, paint, primer, "battleship gray"
(4) 1 CD, "David Allen Coe's Greatest Hits"
(5) 1 Dog, vicious, evil
Movie Idea (Score:2)
starring Harrison Ford, Donald Sutherland and Samuel Jackson
Is the ISS Able to handle that? (Score:2)
Fly the shuttle unmanned (Score:2)
It is about time this capability was added to the shuttle. Makes if the return to flight test flights or some of the ISS construction missions could be flown unmanned.
Snakes on a Shuttle, or? (Score:2)
Re:Snakes on a Shuttle, or? (Score:2)
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go,
tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground control to Major Tom:
Your circuit's dead, there's something wong.
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you
Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do"
If only they had this back then... then Major Tom could be safe and Da
Landing Gear (Score:2, Redundant)
The cable enables flight controllers on the ground to land the Shuttle completely by remote control, including the ability to lower the landing gear
Well, I would *hope* it would include that ability, otherwise the whole thig is pretty useless isn't i t?
Just trying to figure out why the poster decided to include that comment. I mean, is that supposed to be some major accomplishment? It's probably just a signal "lower landing gear" to a system - seems like a very minor part of a complex operation to me
Re:Landing Gear (Score:3, Insightful)
On the shuttle, once the landing gear is down, it is down for good. It cannot be retracted, and opening the landing gear doors compromises the heat shield.
Thus, the designers of the shuttle were weary of the fact that a computer glitch could cause the gear to open up while in orbit or too high up on the descent, causing a chatestrophic mission failure from which ther
Re:Landing Gear (Score:2)
Columbia originally was planned to fly the first flight back in 1980 unmanned.
Lowering the landing gear was disabled from the automatic system for safety reasons. Once it's down, it can't go back up. The gear are moved to the "up" position by ground technicians before the shuttle is ferried back to the processing facility.
Since a failure of the automatics that results in lowering the landing gear is irreversible, it was disabled. I suspect by removing th
How was the remote landing system tested? (Score:3, Interesting)
I also wonder whether it wouldn't be possible (and perhaps safer) to use the shuttle's remaining fuel to lift it into some stable orbit... (thereby, of course, only postponing the problem).
Exclusive image (Score:2)
What would the FAA do? (Score:2)
Order of execution? (Score:2)
Um, wouldn't it be better to try to land the shuttle after everyone is safely off the ISS? The shuttle has copious amounts of Hydrogen and Oxygen and other supplies that could be useful for keeping people alive, while waiting for a rescue mission. Also the rescue mission could bring repair materials for the shuttle.
HAC Turn? (Score:2)
Does this include flying the HAC turn as well, for alignment with the runway? That's quite a thing to have to do manually over a data link... As well as the actual landing itself.
Or does the Shuttle already have this capability, and the remote is only for the Air Data probes and landing gear?
Re:HAC Turn? (Score:2)
Re:HAC Turn? (Score:2)
So..... (Score:2)
Re:I don't see the point (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I don't see the point (Score:2)
"This is Discovery, we've um, er, noticed that Jims biro is missing it's lid. Request permission to abort landing and commence immediate crew evacuation onto the ISS?"
NASA is obsessed with kee
Re:I don't see the point (Score:2)
risk to ground facilities will probablly be minimal, if it makes it through the upper atnosphere in one peice then it will probablly land successfully
NASA is running out of shuttles (only 3 left) and it would be exceedingly difficult to produce more (because they stopped buliding them for so long unlike say soyuz). Thats one of the big downsides of a reusable space fleet so if they
There are 4 shuttles (Score:2)
Not to be pedantic, but strictly speaking, there are 4 shuttles left (Enterprise, Endeaver, Atlantis, Discovery). Enterprise is a non-spaceworthy testing and training unit that I believe is in a museum now, but if they needed to bring another shuttle into service, they wouldn't be starting from scratch. They do have a mothballed shuttle they could modernize and bring into service.
The Right Stuff (Score:2)
You mean 'jimp' :)
Damn right ;) (Score:2)
Damn right. I hope they have at least a 19" TFT and a Thrustmaster HOTAS ;)
Or better yet, one of those force feedback joysticks, programmed to wantonly shake your hand arround for no other reason than because someone thought it was "immersive". I'm sure they'll appreciate the "immersion" and "realism" when aiming the shuttle at the runway.
Ok, now seriously, I think in reality t
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I'll do just that: it's an utterly meaningless comparison.
1. It's not even using the same units. One is in crashes per million miles and the other is in crashes per million hours. I don't know how you compare hours to miles, but in my book that's bull. I'm sorry, but if I compared miles to hours even in a primary school science class, I'd get an F for that.
2. Then how about doing it in crashes per number of flights, then? No, seriously. If you tell me that the thing that counts is takeoff/landing and not hours or miles spent cruising, then why hand-wave in a metric that you yourself just declared meaningless?
Doubly so, when, again, it's not even apples to apples. Using hours or miles instead is only justified when you can imply that there's some proportionality between that and the things that do count. E.g., comparing accidents per million miles for two airplanes is only justified if you can imply that, on the average, a million miles means approximately as many flights for both. Now let's look at shuttles vs airplanes: for an airplane a flight is measured in hours (sometimes even less), while for the shuttle it can be as high as 17 days. So pay attention: the same number of hours does not translate into the same number of takeoffs and landings.
If you do take the number of flights into account, the same Wikipedia page tells you that there have been 2 fatal acidents in 114 flights. That's a 1.75% chance to go *boom* per flight. Now I don't know what the numbers are for commercial aviation, but something tells me that we'd have a major scandal if every 67'th flight was fatal.
3. Furthermore, for an airplane measuring it in miles or hours does make some sense, because an airplane could suffer an engine failure or terrorist attack in mid-flight too, while the shuttle is mostly just idle while in orbit. It isn't just "in cruise", it was just sitting there with the engines turned off.
4. But here's a metric that's right on that wikipedia page and might be a lot more meaningful: 2% chance to die per astronaut per flight. Again, I don't know what the numbers are for commercial aviation, but I do believe we'd have some major scandals if you had a 2% chance to die in each flight.
But to check that hypothesis, let's look at that Airplane Liability page you linked to. They say 635 fatalities in the USA in 2004. (Out of which only 13 for large commercial airlines.) If that were a 2% chance to die per flight, then in 2004 the USA would have had no more than 635 * 50 = 31,750 total persons times flights, including pilots, co-pilots, stewardesses, etc. It would also mean that only 13 * 50 = 650 people travelled with large commercial airlines. Does that sound freaking unbelievable yet? Something tells me there have been at least millions, so the the chance to die per flight must have been _much_ lower. Many orders of magnitude lower.
So basically if you take the metrics that _do_ matter, instead of handwaving in some stupid miles to hours comparison, the shuttle is a freakin' disaster compared to airplanes. It's not an exemplary safety record, it's not comparable to civilian aviation, it's just a freakin' disaster. It's several orders of magnitude less safe. If the shuttle were an airplane, no airline would want to have anything to do with it.